Through thick and thin

This fall, as I discussed two weeks ago, Goose Island will release an all-chocolate Proprietor’s Bourbon County Brand Stout. It has the truest chocolate flavor I’ve ever encountered in a beer.

It’s quite different from New Glarus Brewing’s all-new entry in its limited-release Thumbprint series, Chocolate Stout.

These beers are separated by as hard a border as we have in this country: the Illinois/Wisconsin state line. New Glarus doesn’t sell south of it, and Prop doesn’t touch shelves outside of Chicago, much less Wisconsin. Still, it is tempting to compare them because of the expectations placed on adjunct stouts these days. Prop is damn near Hershey’s Syrup-thick. New Glarus Chocolate Stout is not. It’s as viscous as a glass of Coke, and about as translucent. It is definitely not a pastry stout (current industry lingo for sweet beers that use a lot of adjuncts).

What it is, is supremely Dan Carey. The guy loves balance, and can brew a clean, perfectly even-handed beer with his eyes closed. With classic beers like Staghorn, Totally Naked, or Hometown Blonde, that balance is welcome — even desired. Balance and craft is where everyone knows to turn to New Glarus.

These days, the geeks tend to want something heavier than this gentle Chocolate Stout. New Glarus’s Chocolate Stout has some appreciable and pleasant chocolate aroma, but the mouthfeel is more fizzy than satiny, and chocolate flavor competes with an almost Belgian yeast note. It invites comparisons to New Glarus’ 2011 Chocolate Abbey.

I can’t decide if my desire for a beefier stout should take precedence over the skill with which Dan Carey crafts recipes.

There are benefits. With a thinner stout your palate never wearies of the drinking experience. And who doesn’t want a stout you can drink more than one of now and then? There are fewer volatile flavor components burning off if the four-pack ends up sitting in the store — or your basement -- for a couple months, so the beer remains closer to the brewer’s intent for longer. And there is a lot to taste, regardless, in New Glarus Chocolate Stout. Like those Belgian notes from the yeast. That’s no adjunct trickery. I love Dan Carey’s adherence to Old World beer techniques, and this kind of delicate flavor profile shouldn’t shock anyone.

If New Glarus Chocolate Stout isn’t your favorite adjunct stout, there are plenty of LaBrea tar pit bombers out there to crack open. This is the kind of balanced, nuanced brew that Wisconsin’s beer market has encouraged from the House of Carey, and it’s clearly working for plenty of folks. New Glarus has crafted a sweet stout for the Halloween season that’s the liquid embodiment of not eating all your candy in one night.